The housing was originally established as small collection of railway houses near the train line. In the late 1950s early 1960s the area experienced a small boom of housing (400 houses) mostly built by the then State Housing Commission partly funded by the sale of half the properties to individuals. In the late 1960s the State Housing started to reacquire some of those properties. During the late 1990s the suburb underwent a revamp driven by the State Housing Commission, now called the Department of Housing. This occurred in conjunction with the infill sewage project which was created to convert Perth homes from septic tanks and leach drains to mains sewage. They bulldozed houses on land where they had adjoining properties. For every three houses removed five to seven were built in their place. The majority of these were sold off to low income and first home buyers.

The Department of Housing still owns about 22% of the houses (as opposed to their stated goal of 10%), and uses their housing stock as subsidised rental accommodation.

The deepest point of the Swan River upstream from Melville Water occurs in Ashfield. It was in this area the farthest upstream recording of sharks occurred with one being caught in the late 1970s.